Certona Corporation helps ecommerce merchants deliver product recommendations and customized content to their visitors. The technology, called Resonance, automates visitor traffic patterns, among other variables, and then recommends relevant products and content to each and every visitor.
We asked Meyar Sheik, Certona’s president and CEO, to explain the technology further.
PeC: What is Resonance?
SHEIK: Resonance is a Web 2.0 optimization and personalization platform that automates a company’s ability to provide relevant, individualized web content. It increases an organization’s ability to enhance the visitor experience and raise key performance metrics such as sales conversions, average order value online revenues and content viewed per visit.
PeC: The beef against personalization and behavioral targeting is that it requires the visitor to give up some of their privacy. How does Resonance approach this?
SHEIK: The system leverages the traffic patterns of visitors to help optimize the web experience. It doesn’t use personal information, third-party cookies, or special interaction with the individual. This process, by the way, is also the most effective method to deliver relevant content because consumers’ present behaviors on the site are the most accurate representation of their interests, not the demographic information that they filled out months ago.
PeC: What kinds of ecommerce sites are best suited for Resonance?
SHEIK: Virtually all types of ecommerce firms can see value from Resonance. Whether a company sells products, publishes content or serves ads on its website, online customers and visitors want to see more relevant choices with less clutter. Organizations that can understand visitors’ behaviors and are able to instantly deliver what they need and like will realize the true power of behavioral targeting.
PeC: How long does it take to implement Resonance?
SHEIK: Since Resonance is a hosted service the average client integration time is relatively quick – usually about two weeks. The system dynamically adapts to product catalog or content updates with little to no manual intervention. A merchant’s customers start seeing benefits within days of Resonance going live on a site.
PeC: Where do you think the personalization and behavioral targeting technology is headed?
SHEIK: We will continue to see improvements in automated behavioral and personalization targeting solutions. These will provide content to users with pinpoint accuracy and while preserving their right to privacy. We have successfully deployed several applications of our Resonance platform (personalized home pages, landing pages, emails, etc.) and envision many new applications to help online and multi-channel retailers.
PeC: How much does Resonance cost?
SHEIK: Prices start at $25,000 per year, however fees are performance-based.